


Tuelan Ise Din

by geekyjez



Series: Isii Lavellan (Non-Canon AUs) [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Death, Coping, Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Loss, death of a lover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 23:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3828346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekyjez/pseuds/geekyjez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt fill. Isii's worst nightmare comes true when Solas dies during their travels. In the aftermath, Cole shares his final thoughts with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tuelan Ise Din

Her stomach lurched the moment she saw him fall, his staff skittering across the dirt. Isii lunged forward, throwing herself at the demon that pinned him, her blood running cold as her lover let out an agonized roar. She could hear Varric shouting but it was distant, outside of her focus, her mind set only on the creature as it tore into Solas. She lifted her staff, snarling through clenched teeth as she drove the bladed tip into the demon’s throat, twisting to hook the metal against its collarbone. Lightning rippled along the wooden shaft, an unforgiving surge of energy sinking into the creature as she forced it to the ground with the full weight of her body. The corpse twitched, dead within seconds and she immediately drew away, throwing herself to her knees beside him.

“Solas?” He looked shocked. Disoriented. His breaths were ragged as he pressed his hands to his stomach, gored and bloodied.

Isii could taste bile in her throat as she dug into the pouch on his belt, desperately searching. _Empty. Fenedhis._ “Health potion!” she shouted to her companions. “Everything you have. I need them. Now!” When she glanced up, Cole and Varric stared back at her, shaking their heads. _No. No, gods, no._ She’d used the last of hers during the fighting and now she cursed herself for doing so. She could feel Solas shuddering with each breath, his face growing pale as the helpless panic she’d been barely containing began to overwhelm her. Isii gripped his jaw, turning his head to face her, trying to keep her voice steady. “Vhenan, listen. I need you to heal yourself. I can’t… I can’t help you. I need you to…”

But all she could see in Solas’s eyes was sad acceptance. He was slipping. Her breaths caught in her chest, eyes watering as she cupped his cheeks, shaking her head. “No. No, don’t do this to me,” she choked out, lowering her forehead to his. “I need you.”

She felt his hand move to the side of her neck and she gripped it, lacing her fingers along the back of his own. His breaths were labored, his voice weak when he spoke. “Ar lath ma.”

“Don’t. Don’t you dare say goodbye,” she snarled. She tucked her face beside his own, tears flowing quickly as she tried to blink them away. “You can’t leave me.”

“Ir abelas-”

“Stay,” she whispered, whimpering to hold back sobs. “ _Please,_ vhenan. Stay with me.” She could hear his breaths slowing, shallower with each pass and her throat clenched. Now when she spoke, it wasn’t to him. The words were to Falon’Din. “Not him, please. Sathan, tel’dalas. Isalan ish. I can’t lose him too. Please. Not yet. You can’t do this to me.”

She was still pleading as she felt him go still.

“Isii-” Cole began, tentatively.

“No.” The word came out in a strained whimper, strangling on the sound as she bunched her fists around his vest, pressing her face down against him. She couldn’t breathe. She tried to speak, tried to respond but couldn’t draw air to make a sound. Her body felt numb, her head pounding as tears fell freely.

When she finally regained her voice, she could do nothing but scream.

Her body was broken, bent over him, the sound muffled as she buried her face against his chest. She tightened her grip on him, pulling as if she could draw him closer, hold him tighter, as if somehow it could keep him from slipping away from her. She didn’t know how long she stayed like that. Time passed her by, inconsequential as she rocked against him, shuddering, shouting, completely lost to her grief. She felt a hand move to her shoulder and she jerked away roughly. “Don’t touch me!” But Varric persisted, kneeling beside her, pulling her back, forcing her to release her grip and she collapsed, covering her face in her hands. She didn’t fight him when he wrapped his arms around her and she leaned into his embrace, mindless, struggling with every breath as she wept. The dwarf let her stay like that, saying nothing, simply drawing small circles on her back with his hand.

Cole tried to speak again but Varric shook his head. “Not yet, kid.”

* * *

 

Night had fallen. Isii stared into the campfire, expressionless. Her eyes were swollen from crying, completely exhausted from grief. She felt numb. Hollowed-out. Her fingers played mindlessly over the wolf's jawbone that hung from her neck, digging the teeth into the flesh of her palm just hard enough to be able to feel something. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the body. After carrying Solas back to their camp, her soldiers had taken over the task of cleaning him and wrapping him in a sheet. She would have to decide what would be done with him. He’d never told her of the family he presumably left behind. She didn’t know if there was anyone she should be contacting. Parents? Siblings? There had to be someone who would care that he was gone other than those who knew him within the Inquisition. But he’d never told her of his life before. There _had_ to be family. Friends. _People_. No one moved through life like a ghost. There would be those who loved him who never knew his fate simply because he never chose to tell her and she never pried.

She didn’t know what his funerary preferences would have been, but she would see him laid to rest in Var Bellanaris. It seemed right, somehow. He’d be surrounded by Dalish and ancient Elvhen alike. If the local clan tried to question her choice to bury him as one of her own, she would make them suffer for it. He was hers – and she would see him kept in one of the few places the shemlen never claimed for themselves.

Her two companions remained close, silently sitting with her by the fire. Varric had been cleaning Bianca for far longer than was necessary. Cole watched Isii with pained concern as he sat nearby. She imagined he must find her impossible to ignore with the way she felt right now. Her heart wasn’t broken. It was gone. He was her vhenan – her home, her heart, her center. Without him she had nothing; only emptiness left in his wake.

“You heard his final thoughts,” she whispered, drawing her knees up to her chest, “didn’t you, Cole?”

“Yes,” he said quietly, nodding.

Her lips pursed, twisting as she struggled to keep her voice from breaking. “Tell me.”

“You probably should wait a bit for that sort of thing, Stormy,” Varric murmured.

She closed her eyes, taking an unsteady breath. Even the thought of him was bringing tears back to her eyes but she shook her head. “I need to hear it.”

Cole looked down into his lap, muttering softly. “Burning. Raw and opened. Magic, insufficient. Weak. Too weak. Once this would have been nothing but a scratch, but now – No. This will not be healed. Not in time.”

Tears wet her lashes as she kept her eyes closed, her breath shuddering softly.

“I failed. I failed all of them and not a one will ever know it. The pain is spreading. Limbs heavy. Unwilling. Like slipping into the long sleep only frighteningly permanent – a hard, hurtling dimming descent that cannot be slowed. There is so much I wish to say to you, vhenan. So much I meant to tell you, but there is no time.”

The first tear rolled down her cheek as she whimpered, pressing her hand to her mouth. Cole frowned, staring at her. “Do you want me to stop?”

She shook her head. “No,” she choked out. “Keep going.”

“I say what I can – what matters the most. Ar lath ma. Ir abelas. I am sorry you have to witness this and yet for that I am thankful. Deras ma, vhenan. Let me know that you are here. An old fear, chased away by something as simple as the warmth of your hand. The last gift you can give me. At least I will not be alone.” Her shoulders shook as she bent down, her hand pressing tightly over her lips as she curled in on herself. She remembered the Fade, the tombstone. She’d promised him he would never have to be alone again. She’d been able to keep her promise in the worst way possible.

“Tuelanen banafelasemah,” Cole muttered. She stilled, lifting her head, peering at him. _The Creators will wither and decay._ “Tuelan ise din.” _A god is dead._ “Confessions I will take to the grave. Ir abelas, vhenan. It was never supposed to end this way.” The spirit lowered his gaze, hugging his arms around himself. “And then he was gone.”

Isii sat in silence for a moment, staring into the fire, wiping roughly at her cheeks. Slowly, she lifted herself to her feet. “I need to go. Take a walk. Something. I can’t sit here like this anymore.”

“I’ll come with you,” Varric said quietly, setting down the crossbow.

Isii shook her head. “I’d rather be alone.”

He studied her face, a deep crease formed between his brows. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

“I’m not going to go hurt myself, Varric.”

“I didn’t say you would.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, lowering her head. “You didn’t have to.” She turned and left, thankful to hear that neither one of them followed as she wandered beyond the borders of their camp. She let the forest envelop her, shadows draped across her form, moonlight barely breaking through the branches to light her path. She felt disconnected from her body as she walked. He never believed in gods. Perhaps he never believed in the Beyond. She wanted to comfort herself with the thought that his soul would wander the Fade he had loved so much, that she would see him there again – if not in dreaming then when death finally took her. But he wouldn’t have believed that, would he? He would have called it a Dalish superstition and nothing more. As much as she wanted to believe, she didn’t know if she could. The thought that nothing more remained of him than that body in a sheet haunted her. She needed some piece of him to still remain. She needed him.

A wolf howled, a mournful sound ringing through the night air and though she could not say why she felt the heat of fresh tears slip down onto her cheeks. With each one she shed, she cursed her gods for taking everything she had ever allowed herself to love. The Creators were cruel and heartless. They had taken her heart, her vhenan, and left her half-formed. Isii slumped against a tree, her weeping witnessed only by the silent woods around her as she allowed herself to surrender to it once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> Ir abelas - I am sorry  
> Sathan, tel’dalas – please don’t kill  
> Isalan ish – I need him  
> Deras ma – touch me, reach out for me
> 
>  
> 
> I am a _mess_ after writing this prompt fill from tumblr. Ugh, god, my heart. This is honestly the most I think I've cried while writing. I need to go decompress with some fluff.


End file.
